Podcast 99: Take Personality Quizzes, Consider Your Email Habits, and Book Club Conflicts.

Happier with Gretchen Rubin

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We’re having so much fun with our Instagram project. Every day, for the month of January, Elizabeth and I are posting a photo on Instagram of something that makes us happier (giving us a boost, helping us stick to good habits, reminding us to feel grateful, etc.). Join in! Use the hashtag #Happier2017 and tag us — I’m @gretchenrubin and Elizabeth is @lizcraft.

Try This at Home: Katie suggested taking personality quizzes to get to know yourself better. We agree!

In episode 80, we talked about the "Five Love Languages" and why we found them so helpful. As a reminder, the Five Languages are:

Openness to experience: The degree of intellectual curiosity, creativity and a preference for novelty and variety a person has.

Conscientiousness: A tendency to be organized and dependable, show self-discipline, act dutifully, aim for achievement, and prefer planned rather than spontaneous behavior.

Extraversion: Energy, positive emotions, assertiveness, sociability and the tendency to seek stimulation in the company of others, and talkativeness.

Agreeableness: A tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others; a measure of a trusting and helpful nature; whether a person is generally well-tempered or not.

Neuroticism: The tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression, and vulnerability. Neuroticism also refers to the degree of emotional stability and impulse control.

The Enneagram divides people into nine categories. You can take a paid test hereor a free one here.

The Reformer

The Helper

The Achiever

The Individualist

The Investigator

The Loyalist

The Enthusiast

The Challenger

The Peacemaker

If you want to take more personality quizzes, there's a wide range on the Authentic Happiness website.

As always, to take the Four Tendencies quiz, go here. Understanding whether you're an Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel is very useful. If you want to be notified when my book, The Four Tendencies comes out, sign up here. I describe my framework as my version of a Muggle Sorting Hat.

We didn't get a chance to talk about Myers-Briggs! Which is a very popular personality framework.

Happiness Hack: This may be controversial: my hack is to include only one issue per email, with a clear subject line. While some people try to send fewer emails, by fitting more issues into a single email, I (for one) find this confusing and difficult to manage.

More Episodes For You

Find out if you’re an Upholder, Obliger, Questioner, or a Rebel.

The Four Tendencies explain why we act and why we don’t act. Our Tendency shapes every aspect of our behavior, so understanding your Tendency lets us make better decisions, meet deadlines, suffer less stress and burnout, and engage more effectively.